The Britannia Times

International Women's Day 2017

Published on 8th. March 2017

We say grab a Ride discount code, look to Beryl Burton for motivation and read our article on Womanthology!

Every year we see our ride numbers rise with women riders, it is a well published fact that last year we saw over 1000 women take to the start-line to tackle 25, 55 or 100 miles of challenging riding on pre-1987 road bikes. Have a look below at just some of the inspiring women who have joined us at Eroica Britannia over the years. To celebrate International Women's Day today we are offering a special 15% off £65 ride entry tickets for women riders. Book your tickets HERE using promotion code WOMEN2017 to redeem your discount*. The promotion code will run throughout March 9th 2017, expiring at midnight.

Womanthology

We are delighted to be featured on Womanthology today in an interview with one of Eroica Britannia's founding partners Nick Cotton. Womanthology puts Nick in the hot seat to find out more about the event's aspirations to reach out to and inspire an even greater number of women to take part in The Great British Adventure 2017.

We've picked out some of our favourite bits of the interview which focuses on the legendary Beryl Burton OBE. Over to Womanthology and Nick.

'Which female cyclist inspires you from history and why?'

Beryl Burton OBE (12th May 1937 – 5th May 1996) was a British racing cyclist who dominated women’s cycle racing in the UK, winning more than 90 domestic championships and seven world titles, and setting numerous national records. She set a women’s record for the 12-hour time-trial which exceeded the men’s record for two years.

She also used the Peak District as her training ground, which is especially important for us as she would have trained on some of the roads and tracks that riders of Eroica Britannia will journey on.

'What Did She Achieve?'

Beryl’s achievements are literally too numerous to list here. She was almost unbeatable in domestic time trial competitions for 25 years (yes, 25 years!) between 1959 and 1983, she won 72 national individual time trial titles, and she won 24 more national titles in road racing as well as on the track.

Internationally, she was world champion five times, silver medallist three times and won bronze four times. She won the women’s world road race championship twice and was runner up once. On the track, she was an individual pursuit specialist, winning world championship medals almost every year across three decades.

In 1967, she set a new 12-hour time trial record of 277.25 miles – a mark that surpassed the men’s record of the time by 0.73 miles and wasn’t to be surpassed by a male cycling until 1969. Legend has it that in one race as she was setting one of many records she caught (and passed) her male challenger, Mike McNamara, handing him a Liquorice Allsort as she overtook him.

She also set about 50 new national records at 10, 15, 25, 30, 50 and 100-mile distances, three of which each lasted 20 years before being broken. Her 100-mile record lasted for 28 years, and her 12-hour record still stands today. These achievements led to an invitation to compete in the Grand Prix des Nations in 1967, which was next to impossible for a woman at the time.

In 1982, along with her daughter, Denise, she even managed to set a British 10-mile record for women riding a tandem bicycle – an epic 21 minutes, 25 seconds.